page43

January 2008, another new year, another start to a fantastic year of fishing on the beautiful island of Cyprus. After being back in England for Christmas and the New Year (four week of no fishing due to floods or frozen water) it was great to have a rod in my hand again!!!

The 8th January saw the first match of the year at Polemedia dam in Limassol with Jon Harbron winning with 17lb, second was Steve Duckworth with 13lb 12oz and third was the lovely Jackie Blain with 9lb 12oz (who says women can’t fish!!!).

The next match was an open on the 15th at Asprokremnos and once again Ray Ayre showed his skills at this the most reliable dam in winter months’ by returning 10lb 4oz to bouble the weight of second placed Steve Duckworth on 5lb 2oz, third was a new member Tim Newbury with 3lb 8oz.

The third match was the 5th round of the winter league again held at Asprokremnos on the 22nd, 17 of our finest anglers contested this hard fought match but it was no contest in the end as a magnificent display of of fishing skills was shown by Peter Heritage to land six nice carp for a total of 17lb 8oz, easily beating the second place of Jon Harbron on 7lb 8oz and Steve Duckworth on 3lb 12oz.

An extra open was held on the 30th due to five Tuesdays falling in this mouth, only 10 anglers turned out to brave the elements ( wet, windy, hailstorms, cold, thunder and lightning, ) the weights were not to bad considering the inclement weather with Ray Ayre wining with 6lb 8oz, second was myself with 4lb 12oz and Lance was third with 4lb 6oz.

Our annual presentation night was held on Thursday 31st at the Bistro in Tala Square, Congratulations to Ches on becoming the overall club champion for 2007 and all other members who recived a trophy.

February, the shortest, coldest, darkest, and the most miserable mounth of the year, but unfortunately for the state of our dams not the wettest. The water levels are seriously low at most of our usual venues and combined with the club going from strength to strength resulting in more anglers turning out for the Tuesday matches, we are very restricted to where we can accommodate 20 or more people fishing.

Asprokremnos is the most reliable at this time of year and the usual straight length at the back of the dam was the chosen venue for the four Tuesdays in February.

Fishing was hard with tiny roach being the main species caught, by tiny I mean tiny! In some cases three fish to the ounce! We don’t know what has happened to the larger roach but one train of thought was thata few years ago certain types of fertiliser thet seeped into the water system via farming etc caused the fish to change sex resulting in only male fish and no mating, this was certainly the case in waters in the British Isles. This sex change lark seems to be all the rage at themoment, even my better half wants a sex change, she has decided we will now have it the third week of July instead of thefirst week in november!

The results for the open match held on the 5th was a joint first with Athos and Richard Grove taking 5il 4oz each and Chas (not mentioned much lately, but you can’t keep a good man down!) third with 4lb 6oz. The pairs were won by Richard Grove and Ray Ayre.

Tuesday 12th saw a similar result for the sixth match in the winter league with Athos once again winning with 5lb 8oz including a carp of 2lb, second was John Whittington with 4lb 10oz of small fish, and the unlucky Collin Farrar with 4lb 8oz despite hooking and losing four carp! The pairs were won by Athos and Sylvia Sawbridge.

The next match was an open fished on the 19th and once again Athos drew one of the good pegs near the Island. He made no mistake and landed four carpplus small roach for 11lb 10oz to make it three wins in a row and bring him closer to the leaders in the very generous Simon Emery sponsored league. In second place was Rod howard on the next peg who landed three carp and lost tow for 8lb 6oz , and third was myself from the other end, on peg one with 6lb 2oz. The pairs were won by myself

The final match in February was the 7th round of the Winter league and again was down to the draw as the end pegs near the island, as usual, produced the carp. This time it was Jon Harbron, the current leader in the Simon Emery League, who landed three carp plus small fish for 8lb 4oz from peg 18, second was John Sutton on peg 17 with 5lb 8oz, and third was Lance Cubb with 5lb. The pairs were won by Jon Harbron and Sylvia Sawbridge.